Founding Tigers
by Dannor
Summary: Co-written by Calvin Potterson. Deciding his mom's tyrannical punishments are too much, Calvin cajoles Hobbes to go to 1776 with him to get Thomas Jefferson to help him gain independence. But once the Continental Congress sees Hobbes, history smacks stra


**Disclaimer: **It's me again! And Calvin Potterson! We've decided to co-write a fic- via Instant Message. So if this looks kinda choppy 'n stuff, sorry 'bout that. Anyway, we have _big _news. We want you, the reader, to go to this URL, and read the URL, written by THE Elvenking. Thanks for going there! Oh, and here's something from CP: www.thehungersite.com.  
  
We would put more URLs, but FanFiction.net is screwing everything up. So, next week- more URLs from us. R&R!

It was another boring summer day for Calvin and Hobbes.  Since Calvin's parents had revoked his outdoors privileges after the Rain Gutters Incident (let's keep that between Calvin, Hobbes, and Calvin's parents) they been locked inside of Calvin's room for nearly a week, only coming downstairs for meals and their half-hour allotment of TV time.

 "I tell you, Hobbes," Calvin moaned on their way back up the stairs after their thirty minutes of television, "this just isn't fair."

 Hobbes sighed, "Whose idea was it again to steal the ladder from the garage and-"

 Calvin cut him off, "Never mind fuzz head."

 Hobbes opened the door to Calvin's room and began reading the comic _Mega-Mutant Morons from the Mob Planet Mobbilia_. Calvin quickly managed to hide all the pencils in Hobbes's immediate vicinity.

 "You're no fun," Hobbes muttered, continuing to read.

 "Yeah, well you know what's no fun, fuzzface?  This!" he gestured empathetically around the room, "This is, this is..."

 "Your fault?" Hobbes commented lightly, earning him a glare of the blond six -year old.

 "This reminds me of tyranny!" Calvin said, throwing his fists up in frustration.

"Y'know, the American colonists didn't stand for tyranny," Hobbes said, not looking up

 "And what's that supposed to mean?" Calvin said, giving Hobbes a dark glare.  "We can't secede!  We've tried it before!"

 Hobbes grimaced as he remembered the half-hour attempt at an excursion to the Yukon...honey and marshmallow simply didn't go together.

 Calvin glanced towards the closet, and a maniacal glint lit up in his eye. Hobbes recognized it. "Uh oh..." he said, marking his page in the comic. If they were still alive after whatever Calvin was planning, he'd still want to read it.

 "Hobbes...I've got a fantastic idea."

 Immediately, Hobbes' tail went all bushy.  It always did whenever Calvin claimed he had gleaned a fantastic idea from his gray cells.

 "You said the American's didn't stand for tyranny..."

"...and your point being?"

"Let's go ask 'em to help us!"

 Hobbes laughed out loud.  "You honestly expect Thomas Jefferson to tell your mother that you should be allowed to go outside?"

 "Yes," Calvin said, rummaging around in his closet for his vortex goggles. "Mom would listen to our ninth President."

"Third," Hobbes corrected.

 "Whatever," Calvin muttered, and he finally plied two sets of well-worn swimmer's goggles from the eternal mess in the closet, "I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem with it.

 "Oh sure," Hobbes said sarcastically, "It's not like he has more important things on his hands...like writing the Declaration of Independence."

 "Hey!" Calvin protested, "We're fighting for independence too!"

 Hobbes rolled his eyes. "Not quite the same kind of independence."

"Close enough!" Calvin said, finally managing to extract his Time Machine from his closet, causing a shelf to topple down. Countless unfolded socks fell off, but Calvin took no notice.

 Hobbes sighed as he bent over to pick up the socks and unceremoniously tossed them into the closet.  "I take it that nothing I say will convince you?"

 "Nothing whatsoever," Calvin said, clambering into the well-worn box. "Now, c'mon!"

 Surprising even himself by his willingness, Hobbes strapped on the goggles and claimed into the box.  "Well, hopefully they had good cheesesteak in 1776," he joked.

 Calvin gave him an odd look, "But we're going to Washington in 1776, not Philadelphia," he explained, as if to a small child.

 "Which one?" Hobbes asked without thinking.

"Washington state, dummy," he said. 

 This brought a stare from tiger to human, "You do realize Washington State was formed in the 1880's don't you?" Hobbes inquired.

 "Er--- of course!" Calvin said, quickly readjusting the dial on the Time Machine (which he had just added) away from "Washington State."

 "Furthermore," Hobbes continued, "Washington D.C. wasn't built until 1800."

 Calvin grinned. "I knew that," he said, and quickly turned the dial to "Philadelphia" hoping Hobbes wouldn't notice.

 Naturally, Hobbes didn't, but he contented himself with a smug smile, "So now that we have the where down....when is the *when*?"

 Hobbes did*

 "Oh, we can just interrupt him with something unimportant- perhaps July, 1776," Calvin said nonchalantly

 Hobbes's eyes bulged, "But-but that's the month of the entire center of the debate on Independence!"

 "I met _after the Fourth, fuzz-for-brains," Calvin returned._

 Hobbes let out an audible sigh of relief, but quickly held his breath again when Calvin shouted, "Let's go!"

 With that the Time Machine rose into the air, crashed through the closed window, and hurtled into a space-time continuum.

 Hobbes closed his eyes tightly as they flew through the whirling vortexes of space and time, plus a few flashes of past events. The Noodle Incident. Kennedy's assassination.

 "Are we facing the right way this time?" Hobbes remarked, as beads of sweat burst of his skin and fur.

 Calvin gestured towards the Wright brothers taking off. "Of course, lunkhead."

 "Be careful where you turn!" Hobbes cried in alarm, as the continuum swerved and nearly sent them headlong into the Battle of Shiloh.

 Calvin turned around to face Hobbes. "YOU want to try driving in space-time?"

 A few Confederate bullets zinged past the Time Machine as it banked off the walls of the continuum at supra-light speed.  Hobbes placed his paws over his eyes and shook his head meekly, emitting a squeaky, "No."

 Calvin turned back to the "front" of the machine and almost accidentally steered them into the era for the War of 1812.

 Voices emerged from the battlefields of New Orleans in an almost haunting melody through the continuum, "In 1814 we took a little trip/Long with General Jackson up and down the Missisip."

 Hobbes clutched his stomach. "Just land us in Philadelphia, Calvin," he said.

"Oh, fine..." Calvin sighed, and steered them away from that part of time, heading towards 1776.

 Finally, with a sound like a hurricane, the Time Machine left the fourth dimension and re-entered the third unceremoniously crashing through an open window and into the headquarters of the Continental Congress.

 "-and I'll make my signature so big, Fat George can read it across the Atlantic without his glasses on!" Continental Congress president John Hancock declared with a jovial laugh.  Then, suddenly, the historic moment was ruined by the arrival of a young child, a toy, and a cardboard box.  "Good Lord!"

 Calvin blinked. "Er... hi!" he said, stepping out of the box. "I take it this is the Continental Progress?"

"Congress," Hobbes hissed in his ear.

 A slightly rotund young man, sitting with the Massachusetts delegation, stood up.  "Who are you boy?  Are you working for the British?" the man snapped angrily, "Come to catch us in the act of declaring our independence, well d--- the British, and d--- King George!"

 A rusty-haired Virginian, sitting near the window and staring out at Philadelphia looked up at the commotion, "Sit down John."

 John Adams turned on his heel and stared at Thomas Jefferson, "By God Jefferson!  This is perhaps the most historic moment in our national history and it is ruined by...by..." he pointed at Calvin and Hobbes and sputtered out, "This horrendous child and a _toy_!"

 Jefferson quirked an eyebrow, "I see no toy John.  I do, however, see a tiger sitting next to the boy.  He has quite a fearful expression on his furry countenance as well."

 Hobbes sighed. "I take it your Thomas Jefferson?" he said, addressing the man.

The man's eyes widened in shock. "It- it- it talks!"

 Adams looked over at the blond child and his small stuffed toy, "Of course it doesn't talk Jefferson!  It's simply a crude toy!  Now, boy, why are you here?"

 Calvin looked up at Adams. "Well, future America screwer-upper, I'm here to ask Jefferson to tell my mom to let me be independent."

 Adams raised his hands in outrage and stared upwards, "See!  Even boys think only of Jefferson!  Where will _I and the rest of Congress be in the history texts?  No doubt they will say that George Washington came out of Ben Franklin's cane after it struck by lightening!" He re-focused his attention on the boy, "Now boy...go to your mother!"_

 Calvin quirked an eyebrow. "I can't 'go back' until Jefferson agrees to come with me. Now, quit whining and send him with me to the future..." Calvin said, adding a would-be eerie inflection on "the future."

Adams snorted, "The future, indeed!"  He turned to Jefferson, "Well then, did you hear that?  The boy and his stuffed animal wish to take you to _the future!"  He snickered._

 Jefferson had inched his chair back slightly. "If I may address the tiger..."

"Certainly," Hobbes said, stepping in front of Calvin, much to the six year olds displeasure.

 "If you are truly from the future, surely you and the lad could tell us about what happens after this distingueshed day of July Fourth, 1776?"

 At this Hobbes cast a glance at Calvin, "After the Fourth indeed," he muttered under his breath.

Calvin got an evil gleam in his eye, making Hobbes's tail go bushy.  "Well, after today, history reaches its zenith by me being born in the late 20th century." 

Hobbes scoffed. "Oh please," he said

 Adams breathed a loud sigh of irritation, "Jefferson, you have gone mad!  And so is the boy!  There is no tiger, nor no child from the 20th Century!  This is no doubt a hoax by some fool of a child who wishes to impugnation our historical signification!  Who here actually sees a tiger?"

 Jefferson's eyes never wavered from Hobbes, "Suspend all disbelief John.  I have already been forced to stretch the limits of my imagination in the assumption that my Declaration could possible alter the fate of the world...if you open your mind and _believe_...why, lo!  He is there!"

 Adams scoffed. "Honestly, Thomas, if you are going to be so foolhardy, go ahead. I, however, have important matters to attend to. If you are all going to stare at a foolish boy and a stuffed tiger, you will have to exclude me."

 With that John Adams, strode forward, took out a quill, dipped it in the inkwell and signed his name in the center of the Declaration.

 Only Hobbes realized what had happened.  In history, Hancock signed first.  But their arrival had altered that chain of events...and now changed the future.

 Naturally Calvin was oblivious, as he was mostly soaking in the attention of the occasional congressman yelling, "I see him!"

 "I see the tiger!"

 Hobbes walked quickly towards John Adams. "Mr. Adams," he pleaded, but he was interrupted.

 "Now see this? This boy is throwing things at me! This is outrage!" he shouted.

 A loud chortle filled the room.

 This laughter emanated from the Pennsylvania delegation.  Specifically, Benjamin Franklin, who stood up precarious and tapped his cane on the ground, "John, John...surely you too can open your eyes and see the tiger is real!  As Thomas said...suspend your disbelief...even momentarily."


End file.
